


eight more years (but better by your side)

by youngerdrgrey



Category: Scandal (TV)
Genre: 30 x 31 Writing Challenge, F/F, Femslash February, Femslash February Celebrates Black Women, Talk of Fitz sadly, season 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-22 00:17:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9573197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youngerdrgrey/pseuds/youngerdrgrey
Summary: Mellie asks her, "Would you do it all again? Fitz, the affair, the campaign?" And Olivia says, "I'm here with you, aren't I?" It's not the same thing, Mellie tells herself, but the weight in Liv's voice makes her doubt that. Sends her nerves into overdrive and forces up words like apologies and admonitions./prompt: mutual pining





	

**Author's Note:**

> written after 6x02. Talks of Fitz and also Mellie/Marcus.
> 
> \+ **written for** day 31 of the 30 x 31 writing challenge; **prompt:** mutual pining.

 

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Mellie spends too much time drinking in Olivia Pope's bathtub. But the tub's always cool enough that she can force her warm skin against it and pretend that she's okay. The bathroom's acoustics carry sound well enough that she doesn't have to project, or put much more than her thoughts into words, for Olivia to hear her. Sometimes, it's like they're in their own world, like no one else can get to them when they're tucked away in the bathroom with a jar full of hooch and too many unfinished sentences.

"I shouldn't compare them," Mellie says. She presses her palms to the cool of the tub and watches her skin change beneath her fingernails. Watches her blood and imagines she can't hear it echoing against the walls. "You and Fitz were..." They were practically something of legend, something that withstood everything but the pressure of the Oval. Even when Mellie hated what they had, she'd envied it, wondered what it would be like to care for someone so much that you're drawn to each other. Practically forced to be together.

Olivia sinks back against the side of the tub. "We were. But it wasn't sustainable. It was...." She drinks from the jar and hugs it between two hands. "He was...." Her gulp echoes. She sighs. Nods. "Well, you know. So compare all you want. If what you feel for Marcus is--"

"It's not." At least Mellie doesn't think it is. He's nice, fun, and while he might not be exactly what the American public might want for her, he's still better than her alternative. He's got similar features, and the hunger and adoration that creeps into his eyes almost mirrors the ones she's been tracking this whole campaign. But if she can't have Marcus and the Oval, then how could she have anyone else?

Mellie raps her knuckles against the edge of the tub, and Olivia hands over the hooch without needing another sound. They might drink too much -- the two of them -- but the drinks make the words come easier, make the past fade faster, and the reasons not to talk melt away completely. Eight years of back and forth don't matter when they're drinking. And if sharing a glass means Mellie leaves with two shades of lipstick on her lips, then so be it. And if that thought makes her heart pound, then she can just blame it on the hooch, even if she can hold her liquor.

And Mellie really has no business comparing this new thing with Marcus to Olivia's thing with Fitz. Fitz went to war for Olivia. And Olivia truly is Helen of Troy, inspiring people to the point where they are willing to kill for her without ever having her know the burden of what they've done. But something like that has to weigh on a person, right? The knowledge that none of your actions can solely be your own, the thought that at any moment you could become another bargaining chip for people too power hungry and obsessed to wait their turn.

"Olivia?" Mellie scoots over to the side of the tub near her, winds up right over Liv's shoulder. "Honestly. Would you do it all again? Fitz, the affair, the campaign?"

Olivia turns her head when she smiles, and she says, "I'm here with you, aren't I?"

"It's not the same thing," but the weight in Liv's voice makes Mellie's eyebrows knit. Liv spoke like it was fact, like there was no difference between getting Mellie and Fitz into the Oval and creating a president who's at least a little bit in love with you. And it's not a concession to say that Mellie's at least a little bit in love with Olivia, everyone who's ever met Olivia Pope finds themselves breathless and wanting. But the thought that it could honestly be something that binds them instead of tears them apart? That has Mellie gripping the tub's edge with sweating fingers, has her nerves in overdrive as she reminds Olivia, "I'm not Fitz. You don't --" love her, "You couldn't possibly --" unless she could. Unless that same hunger and adoration she's envisioned is real.

"Mellie," Olivia cuts her off. "I'm not going anywhere, okay? And," she chuckles, "it is perfectly fine that you're not  _him_. Even better actually. He had that nasty habit of sucking the life out of people." Her eyes hollow once she's said it, and Mellie can count on one hand the number of times she's heard Liv say something truly negative about Fitz. Olivia stores her sadness in the spaces in her eyes, like little breaths between eyelashes that you know are there but can almost forget even exist.

Liv glances away, but it's not like Mellie doesn't already know Fitz's habits. She knows just as well as Olivia how that man can handle the world, and she's known it at a different level of love, at a level of obligation and love for the power rather than the man itself. Though, it's something different to watch another person die the same way you did. To watch them fall and feel phantom pain in your own body. Mellie used to want someone to see the pain she felt and reach out, help her, help the marriage. But no one came.

Mellie leans forward until she can rest her head against Olivia's. Temple to temple, and Liv tenses a moment, and the veins along the side of her head pulse against Mellie's. Then she breathes through it, pushes back into the touch in a way that feels like a thank you.

Olivia asks her, "You wouldn't do that, would you?"

Just hurt her, or hurt her like Fitz did? Liv would have to love her a whole hell of a lot for her to be able to do damage like that. But, and this might just be the hopeful part of Mellie speaking, if she were given the chance to love Olivia, she would do it right.

There's no way to say all that without shooting herself in the foot, so she goes for a lighter way of saying it, she hopes. "Ask me in eight years." She chuckles, and she can feel Liv's cheeks lift up on the side of her face. "After two terms as President of the United States. No kidnapping this time though." Shit, she shouldn't have said that. But it's out there, and her voice drops in both tone and volume. "It changed you."

Mellie probably shouldn't have known Olivia well enough to even see the change. Most people can't find it. There's a stiffness and a shift in Liv's physicality, a bit more of a jolt in her movements, a flicker of doubt and fear in her eyes. Mellie'd trained herself to find Liv's weaknesses once, as a line of defense. Now, it's like a curse. She can see, or feel, the slight puff of Liv's nostrils, the light unhinging of Liv's jaw when words can't come, and know how deep something cuts.

"No kidnapping." Liv croaks. "Totally agreed."

Mellie turns her head so her forehead's against Liv's side, and she hopes that it can hold her apology. Not just for bringing it up, but for the fact that, as much as Mellie would love to tear Fitz down, she almost understands why he did it -- went to war for Olivia Pope, doomed two countries and nearly lost the presidency. If it meant having her back, meant knowing her again, Mellie might do it too.

But there will be no kidnappings in Mellie's presidency. No new wars. No evil command fathers who find a way to kill far too many people in far too short of a time, and on someone else's conscience. It will be a better time, for all of them, but especially for Mellie and Liv.

She likes the sound of that probably more than she should. Mellie and Liv.

She turns her head back out and reaches for the jar in Liv's hand. "Seal it and sanitize it?" she asks, which is Mellie's way of saying it seal it with a drink. Liv gives her the jar, and she swigs from it and hums through the burn before handing it back.

"Seal it and sanitize it."

Liv takes her swig. Winces. Has to shake a bit to ease that taste and let the moments wash away.

One day, they can do this in their old tub in the residence, and it won't matter who knows where they are, or what they're doing, because they'll be right where they belong -- in the center of the world, just them and a jar of hooch and maybe some actually finished sentences.

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**Author's Note:**

> Season six has already sent me reaching for fics (though, not necessarily in a bad way). How about you all? How are you handling the new season?


End file.
